


The Brave and the Bold

by Abi (justabi)



Category: DCU, Smallville
Genre: Angst, Gift Fic, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Pining, Rare Pairing, Self-Denial, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-22
Updated: 2009-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-02 08:49:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justabi/pseuds/Abi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce has rules, discipline. He doesn't touch, not Clark, not himself, not ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Brave and the Bold

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [All Yours](https://archiveofourown.org/works/199668) by [roxymissrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roxymissrose/pseuds/roxymissrose). 



> This story is the Bruce POV for [All Yours](http://roxymissrose.livejournal.com/tag/all+yours) by Roxy, a delicious Clark/Lex hooker!fic that you simply must read. It might make sense if you don't read Roxy's fic first, but I wouldn't count it. And also, _hooker!fic where Clark is the hooker_. You want to read that fic. *licks it*

Bruce has rules, discipline. He doesn't touch, not Clark, not himself, not ever. He gets a high off Clark climbing in his bed cum-soaked and used, babbling filth and touching himself, because Clark is ethereally beautiful debauched and ruined and the _temptation_ of him is too exquisite to refuse. Strength of will is nothing if it isn't tested, and it's heady to know his will can pass a test like Clark. He used to watch Clark's assignations. He doesn't now, because he knows without the effort of walking out the door that he can sit in the car for an hour with his dick stiff in his shorts, throbbing so hard it aches down to his fingertips, and not touch, even with no one else there to see, when no one else would ever know, and that's all he needed from the exercise.

He was just this edge of sure of himself with Clark right up until he found Clark's research. Bruce felt something twist up inside him when he saw Lex's name in the search engine, felt actual honest to god shame watching Clark jerk off to pictures of Lex in front of the computer and the heat of the shame was the thing that stopped him from wrapping his hand around his dick and jerking it raw, not discipline. He feels like he's losing his mind a little, and if Clark had come into his room and offered Bruce his hand or his mouth or his ass, Lex's name and face rolling around in Clark's head, Bruce thinks he wouldn't have been able to say no.

He's a complete fucking mess whenever Lex is in town even without Clark poking around. Bruce doesn't drink or fuck his way through Gotham, but Lex had been in town the night Bruce picked up Clark and Bruce had had a reckless moment where he'd thought about it. It's his mind that's cracked, wild around the edges, not his _heart_. Perhaps sometimes his knuckles are cracked as well. Violence is very soothing when Lex comes to town, he finds, and there is no shortage of villains for Bruce to extract his calm from these days.

When he sees Lex drugged and passed out in the car he's stricken, out of his mind with the desire to do something foolish like _rescue_ Lex. All he can think about is how vulnerable Lex is, has a nearly undeniable craving to swoop in and scoop Lex up in his arms and _nurse him back to health_ like some appalling Gothic romance novel. He's paralyzed with it right up until he sees Clark.

Bruce breaks every piece of equipment on his dashboard console, rips his gloves and leaves shards of shatter-proof plexiglass sticking out from his knuckles while he rubs himself off with a bloody fist watching them. Literally seconds after he cups his cock he makes a mess of his suit. He's hard again just trying to peel the rubber away from his skin. Blood and cum mix all together while he moans himself hoarse, wantonly, frantically masturbating all night as he watches them.

He's never wanted Clark more, never hated him before, but now that he does, the desire to have Clark on his knees, pretty red lips wrapped around his cock is almost as unbearable as the desire to hit Clark's pretty face while he does it. He's not sure he could stop himself from either impulse, but no matter, the impulse to run far, far away from Lex trumps it all.

 

* * *

Life was different in many ways before his parents died. Bruce remembers being happy, remembers loving his parents very much and having a grand time playing lord of the manner with various and sundry playmates, mostly the children of his parents' friends. Lex Luthor was not one of them. Lex was more like a tiny, chubby, ginger puppy that followed Bruce around making a nuisance of itself. Bruce found Lex to be immensely annoying to say the least.

Alas, no matter how annoying Bruce told his mother Lex was, his mother continued to invite Mrs. Luthor to everything because she and Lilian were at school together in the same Sorority. _Besides which_, his mother says, _Mrs. Luthor and the boy need as much time away from that neuvo riche husband of hers, so be nice Bruce._ And Bruce was nice to the little twerp, because Bruce was always his mother's perfect little gentleman, unlike some people, and his mother told him to be nice, so _of course_ he was nice to the kid.

Thing was, being nice to the kid, even in a totally perfunctory way was like giving food to a stray. Lex was starved for attention and Bruce had given it to him once, against his better judgment, and ever after that Lex followed him around with this expectant, hungry look on his stupid freckled face.

Lex had been 4, chubby and freckled, hair so red and curly it looked like it belonged on a clown, wandering around in what had been a pristine tiny kid sized suit, but which was now covered in light purple frosting. Lex had stuck his sticky fingers directly into the icing at the back of the cake in the ballroom. The Luthor's nanny smacked his little fingers, causing fat tears to well up in the kid's eyes and stream down his sugar-coated face. Bruce, 7-years-old and already a strapping young lad (according to his father), scooped Lex up into his arms, looked disdainfully at the nanny and dismissed her.

Lex had looked up into his eyes, smiled brilliantly and wrapped his arms around Bruce's neck. Bruce _tried_ to deposit him on the settee in the lounge to get him cleaned up, but the kid would not let go. Once Bruce had wiped most of the frosting off Lex (the little freak had _rubbed it in_), Bruce negotiated the release of his person. Lex was heavier than he looked after a while. The best compromise he could come up with was this: Lex unwrapped his legs from Bruce's middle, his arms from Bruce's neck and walked on his own, with the provision that Bruce hold Lex's hand the rest of the night. Which was better, but gross, because try as he might, he'd been unable to wash away the stickiness from Lex's hands.

 

* * *

When Bruce was fourteen, Lex's fingers were still sticky. Lex stole Bruce's monogrammed handkerchief and held it tight in his fist, pressed, white corner just sticking out above Lex's thumb at the graveside service. Bruce thought Lex very brave standing there alone, helplessly naked not just because he was bald, with his horrible father while they lowered Lex's mother into the ground. Despite the normally overwhelming presence of Mr. Luthor, all Bruce could see was how utterly, desolately alone Lex looked, how Lex had clung to his mother just months ago when they lowered his little brother into the tiny plot just feet from where they were now burying Mrs. Luthor.

At his own parents' funeral five years earlier, Bruce had been sick with shock, with rage, with a sharp, gnawing hurt biting his chest, but he hadn't cried. He'd been his mother's perfect gentleman, his father's sharp young man, Alfred's stoic little soldier. He had tensed up whenever the adults tried to hug him, offered a firm handshake and a grim smile in exchange. He allowed Alfred a hand on his shoulder for the few moments the old man offered it, more for his own sake than Bruce's, Bruce's solid shoulder a touchstone to remind him that there was something left of the family he'd served his entire life.

Lex hadn't put up with any of that crap. Even at six, Lex had been bossy and filled with bravado, just shoved past Bruce's fragile defenses and climbed right into Bruce's lap, wrapped his arms around Bruce's neck and pressed his hot little face into the hollow of Bruce's throat. Lex's curls tickled his nose. Bruce sneezed, but Lex just burrowed closer into him and cried so Bruce wouldn't have to.

Bruce wanted to hold Lex's hand, wanted to pull him away and shield him from all this hurt. At the wake Bruce yanked Lex into the coat closet, hid them away behind a forest of furs and pulled Lex back into his lap. Lex resisted for nearly half a second, eleven-years-old and trying to be a man, before giving in, collapsing onto Bruce, breaking down and crying. Lex shivered in his arms and all Bruce could do was hold onto him, stroke the naked curve of his head missing the riot of red curls, and think how thin Lex was.

 

* * *

When Bruce was seventeen, Alfred, no doubt fearing that Bruce would never have a normal life if he continued to fail to socialize, arranged for Lex to stay with them for the summer while Mr. Luthor toured his Asian holdings. Bruce had, possibly, needed it. Possibly. Socializing with his peers ranked somewhere around keeping up with popular culture for Bruce, below personal hygiene, homework, and gym class, but above _talking about his feelings_, which Alfred threatened to arrange for him to do if Bruce should fail to _make some friends_. The thought of being locked in a room with a “therapist” intent on delving into his psyche sent cold shudders down Bruce's spine.

Lex was different than Bruce remembered. Or maybe just _more_. Bolder. Wilder. Almost recklessly social. Fourteen-years-old and ready to take the world by storm. It only took an afternoon for Bruce to adjust, though, to see the shy, cautious, _needy_ boy underneath.

The first night Lex spent at Wayne Manor he crawled into Bruce's bed, drunk and determined, wearing nothing but a pair of silk pajama pants. Bruce yelped when Lex's cold hands touched the skin at his side, but he failed utterly to push Lex away as he should have. Bruce kissed Lex primly at first, then sloppily, drunk on the feel of Lex's skin beneath his fingers and the overwhelmingly alcoholic taste of Lex's mouth. Lex grabbed Bruce's hands, balled into fists at his sides, and pulled them to his body. Lex trembled so much Bruce almost stopped, almost, but he couldn't make himself take his hands away. Instead, Bruce ran his palms soothingly down Lex's flanks like he might do with a skittish colt, petted the pale skin of Lex's naked chest glowing in the near-dark room, caressed the expanse of his back down to the curve at the bottom of Lex's spine.

Lex whimpered helplessly into Bruce's mouth, moved into Bruce's touch and rubbed his silk-covered groin frantically against Bruce's thigh. Bruce kept kissing Lex, and kissing him, and kissing him until Lex jerked his mouth away with a gasp, turned his flushed face down and away, tucking it into Bruce's throat and whispered, “Touch me. Please, Bruce, _please_,” and Bruce groaned. He'd no more than cupped his hand over the silk-covered bulge of Lex's erection when the kid came messily, practically sobbing relief into Bruce's throat, soaking Bruce's hand through the slippery, purple fabric. Bruce brought his hand up to his face, sniffed it, darted his tongue out to taste. Lex shuddered in his arms, licked sweat off the skin at Bruce's throat and bit down.

Bruce made a desperate, strangled sound. Lex shimmied out of Bruce's arms, down Bruce's body, spine loose in a way that reminded Bruce that Lex was drunk, and Bruce almost stopped it there. Almost. He lost his resolve when he looked down and saw Lex's face staring determinedly at Bruce's by now aching groin, right side of Lex's lower lip bitten between Lex's teeth, freckles barely visible across the bridge of his nose, until his eyes flickered up to meet his own, uncertainty in them warring with hope as he reached for the tie holding Bruce's pajama pants up. Bruce nodded once, tight, and held his breath while Lex pulled away Bruce's pants, his boxers, his protection in one quick jerk.

And then Lex froze, hands yanked away like they'd been burned, eyes impossibly wide, all the color in his face drained away. Bruce exhaled with a groan, rolled away with his hands balled back into fists, and, eyes clenched shut tight away from the terrified look on Lex's face, tried to breathe. Bruce stiffened all over hard as a board and slapped away Lex's fingers thirty seconds later when they wrapped themselves shakily around Bruce's still hard erection. Lex tried it again almost immediately, so Bruce grabbed Lex's shaking hand hard in his fist, flipped himself up from the bed and pounced, pinning Lex to the bed by his wrists, growling, “Get your fucking hand off my dick, Luthor.”

Lex moaned wantonly and bucked up into Bruce, bumping the soft curve of his belly into Bruce's painfully throbbing dick, making Bruce snarl and grind down into Lex's skinny little body. Lex flailed against him like he was having a seizure, whipping his head back and forth on his neck and chanting _please, please, please_. It took Bruce precious seconds to come back to himself, release his hold on Lex and fling himself from the bed.

Lex whined pitifully, shoved down his messy pants with one hand and jerked himself frantically with the other, eyes wide and glassy in Bruce's direction. Lex's voice slurred as he said, “Sorry, sorry, so sorry, never done this before, can't stop, so sorry, ahhhhhhhhhh,” and then cum fountained out the end of his dick between his fingers and Lex passed out.

Bruce hated himself so viciously he could barely drag air into his lungs the whole time he brutally yanked his cock over Lex's unconscious body. Once he was done he walked calmly to the en suite, leaned against the marble counter, vomited roughly into the sink like he was the one who'd drunk the contents of a liquor cabinet and avoided looking at himself in the mirror as he rinsed out the basin. He ran a cool washcloth over himself, exchanged it for a clean one and walked back out into his bedroom. He wiped away the semen from Lex's belly, from Lex's naked penis and testicles with prodigious care. He left Lex's hand sticky.

 

* * *

Bruce spent the entire night awake, keeping watch over Lex's thin, pale body, curtains pulled closed to keep out the light, to keep out the admittedly unlikely prying eyes of the world, to keep in the scent of Lex, thick in the humid air. Lex slept like the dead. Bruce had limited himself very strictly to touching only the most non-sexual of places—could not restrict himself from touching at all—the shell of Lex's ear, the crease of Lex's elbow, sniff the bare skin of Lex's armpit, kiss the tip of Lex's nose. When that wasn't enough he'd gathered Lex's limp torso into his arms, repositioned him so that Lex laid across Bruce's chest, and held him until his internal clock (by way of his bladder) told him it was time to get up. Bruce kissed the top of Lex's head, eased him back onto a pillow and shut the curtains; heard Lex murmur sleepily behind him through the thick velvet as he turned away.

Bruce ran.

He changed into running clothes first, of course, in the gym, but that was all automatic. All Bruce wanted was to run away. So he did. Not forever, just off the grounds and into Gotham proper. The sky pissed rain on him as he ran, but what was new? It always rained in Gotham. As he ran past a side street, more of an alley, really, he saw a kid maybe a year older than him swipe a purse off an old lady. Bruce chased him down and hit him. Hard. Hit him again and again until he stopped fighting back. Bruce left the purse, lying filthy in a puddle feet from the kid's crumpled, groaning body, splattered with the kid's blood. The rain washed the kid's blood from Bruce's knuckles as he ran.

Bruce ran into the seed part of the city, the rundown area of downtown where he knew people. He bought a scrip off a dentist with perpetual gambling debts and a thriving business in bogus prescriptions. Bruce paid $36 cash for 100 10mg tablets of generic Valium at the Walmart pharmacy under a bogus name because he didn't trust the shady pharmacy in the same rundown building as the dentist.

The bottle said take ½ tablet every four hours as needed for anxiety. Bruce poured out four little pink tablets into his palm and swallowed them dry. By the time he made it home and out of the shower, he was feeling fine.

Lex was standing there when Bruce stepped out onto the plush,white bathmat, holding a towel. For a moment Bruce thought Lex would just stand there gaping at him forever, but as he reached out to take the towel from Lex, Lex shook his head, threw the towel at Bruce and flashed his eyes pleadingly. He said, “Wait.” So Bruce did. Lex averted his eyes as Bruce wrapped the big terry bath sheet around his waist, bit his lip and crumpled in on himself, but didn't speak. But then, just as Bruce was about to reach out to touch him, Lex said, “I'm sorry. For all of it. I just... _fuck_. I'm sorry.”

Bruce was feeling magnanimous. He said, “Why did you do it?” without rancor or malice, without any feeling at all.

Lex flickered his eyes to Bruce's glistening wet chest guiltily, blushing furiously. Then something snapped and Lex looked straight at him, eyes blazing, and said, “Because I wanted you. Because I'm skinny and bald and everyone I've ever met mocked me but you. Because I can't bear to go back to school a virgin. Because I'm a coward and my entire life, no matter how annoying I was, you never told me no. Because the last time anyone I'm not related to _touched me_ at all was three years ago when you cupped your hand at the back of my head when I hugged you goodbye at my mother's funeral. Because when I look at you my chest gets tight like it did when I was a kid and I _want_ so much I feel like I might die, but I have no idea what to _do_. Take your pick.”

And then Bruce kissed him. He pressed Lex back into the tile wall and kissed him with a serenity that transcended the effects of the pills, kissed Lex with a terrible tenderness that broke something hot and liquid in his chest and gasped. He kissed Lex soft on his forehead, scooped Lex up into his arms like he had when Lex was four, carried Lex to his bed, made love to him and fell deep asleep curled up with Lex like puppies.

 

* * *

At 20 Bruce had been less surprised to find Lex naked in his utilitarian twin bed in his dorm room than he probably should have been. He hadn't seen Lex in years, not since that summer they spent together, but he had always known exactly where Lex could be found on any given day. Bruce knew when Lex left prep school for Met U two years ago, though Lex never told him, knew that at 15 Lex had still been their most promising Freshman, knew Lex's GPA, his scores on the college boards, his class ranking at graduation and just how lucky Met U was that Lionel Luthor didn't want to let little Lex out of his sight. Of course, last week, at 17, Lex had blown up the Met U chem lab so spectacularly even Luthor money couldn't cover it up, so they probably weren't feeling too lucky at the moment.

It had only been a matter of time before he showed up at Princeton, looking to Bruce for comfort. It disgusted Bruce how much he wanted to give it. He raised an eyebrow speculatively at Lex, asked sweetly, “Did you bring me some of whatever you were cooking up in the lab?”

“I did, indeed,” Lex said with a lazy smile, stroking his dick idly with one hand and tossing Bruce a little white packet with the other. “Though, obviously, from the previous batch. The police 'confiscated' the last batch as evidence before they realized they wouldn't be pursuing the matter, and then of course all the evidence mysteriously disappeared so there was no getting it back.”

Bruce poured the contents of the packet onto the skin where Lex's right hip met his groin, dipped his head, pressed one nostril closed with the knuckle of his index finger, and snorted the powder. Bruce pinched his nose closed while the rush hit him, dropped to his knees and licked up the remnants of the drug from the crease of Lex's groin before suckling Lex's cock like a baby at it's mother's tit. Lex's moans where purple and blue and black and Bruce drank them down with Lex's cum.

He was surprised to wake up with Lex. Bruce woke flat on his back, arms pinned at his sides with Lex wild-eyed, hovering above him. Bruce blinked, face blank. Lex kissed him savagely, catching his lip on Bruce's teeth and bleeding warm salty copper into Bruce's mouth. Bruce could see the smear of blood from the corner of Lex's mouth across Lex's cheek when Lex pulled up and away, panting. Lex licked his lips, pressed his forehead down against Bruce's, so close their noses bumped, breaths mingling humid and warm and sour from sleep. Lex whispered, “Tell me you love me,” into Bruce's mouth on a sigh.

Bruce stroked his hand down the back of Lex's head, down his neck, down his shoulder, gripped Lex tight and flipped him. Lex didn't bother to look surprised by their sudden reversal of position, didn't bother to look Bruce in the eye, either, just looked up and off to the ceiling above Bruce's head. Bruce kissed Lex's throat, nuzzled Lex's neck, and whispered, “Yes,” into the shell of Lex's ear. “I do.” Bruce sucked the little silver barbell in the flesh of Lex's ear gently into his mouth. “I always have.” Bruce bit Lex's earlobe sharp enough to hurt, but not enough to break the skin. “You've always known it.” Then Bruce dropped his head, bit into the delicate skin of Lex's neck, just below his ear, like a peach. “And you've always used me for it.”

Lex moaned, shook his head in denial, then moaned again when Bruce bit harder. “Say it. Say you love me,” Lex begged raggedly.

Bruce looked into Lex's eyes, trying to see what the game was this time, but not finding one. “I love you.”

“Again.” Lex's voice was urgent, breathy.

“I love you.” Certain. True.

Lex shuddered beneath him, eyes full and watery.

“I love you.” Bruce breathed it into his skin.

Lex's eyes fluttered closed, spilled tears down the sides of his face.

Bruce licked away the hot, salty little trails. “I love you. I love you. I love you.” A litany, chanted and sacred. Lex clung to him, naked, face wet with tears, silent and Bruce held him close and loved him.

 

* * *

Lex slept with other people. Lex had his own dorm room somewhere else where he slept with people who didn't love him, with people who didn't particularly even like him, with people who wanted him for his money, for his drugs, even a few for his mind, but none of them, not even the ones who slept with him for his exotic appearance, not one of them _saw_ Lex. It made Bruce mad with jealousy, sick with it, but Lex crawled into Bruce's bed every night anyway, stinking of them, drenched in their fluids, drunk and wrecked and begging for Bruce to love him, and Bruce did. Bruce peeled him out of his crusted clothes, washed his skin with his tongue, kissed his dick and his mouth and his asshole, never sure which was filthier, and loved Lex.

Bruce made love to Lex, even when Lex was hurt or tired or _broken_, because Lex asked him to, but it twisted something in side him to do it every time, to love Lex who hated himself. Bruce was out of control with jealousy, started following Lex every minute they weren't together, watching Lex fuck pretty girls who reminded Bruce of Lilian, masturbating helplessly in the dark. Bruce learned biochemistry and chemical engineering, eschewing his own coursework to skulk in the back of Lex's courses. Bruce learned to become invisible in the shadows at nightclubs, palming his dick roughly through his slacks while Lex let perfect strangers touch his body on the dance floor. Bruce learned how to hurt a man just enough to make up for whatever they'd done to Lex before they threw him away.

Bruce reigned himself in enough to stay at home, caged safely in his dorm room, for just one night. At dawn he found Lex passed out in a gutter in front of the building, face down in a pool of vomit, some dried and crusted, some fresh, with his clothing ripped, his wallet gone, his flaccid dick hanging out, a purpling bruise blooming on his forehead. As Bruce heaved him up from the sidewalk Lex belched sickeningly and putrid, faintly alcoholic brown fluid poured from his mouth in a rush all down the front of his mangled shirt, but Lex didn't wake. Lex didn't wake as Bruce carried him up the stairs, didn't wake when Bruce jostled him out of his clothes, didn't wake when Bruce tucked him into bed propped on his side with a stainless steel emesis basin under his head.

Like a feral animal, Bruce lashed out at the first likely candidate. Some steroidal asshole Lex had traded his own special blend of home cooked, undetectable metabolites that set off a chain reaction of bigger, better, stronger, faster better than anything on the market for rough trade the week before, the asshole being rough and Lex the trade. Bruce took Lex's drugs, too, sometimes, but it wasn't a trade for love or sex or affection. Lex had always engaged in self-destructive levels of largess, got frustrated and hurt when it wasn't accepted, so though Bruce didn't _need_ them, he wanted them, because Lex offered, because Lex made them, because Bruce had money and influence and didn't need anything else Lex could give him, didn't need Lex to buy him diamonds. Bruce beat steroid boy into a coma with his bare hands and it still wasn't enough.

Lex was careening out of control, yet somehow still managing to ace his classes. Bruce was not. Bruce had not been to class in weeks, paid attention in months, consumed with Lex. Bruce had destroyed his entire life over his obsession with Lex. He loved Lex, craved him, desperately needed to protect him and it was all a sick game for Lex. Lex who was being sick in Bruce's bed, moaning and moving and awake. Lex who had never once in all the times he'd begged it of Bruce told Bruce he loved him.

Lex would be alright. Lex was always alright, despite Lex's best efforts. The frenetic worry for Lex had broken the second Lex opened his eyes on his own, completely clear despite his obvious intoxication. The bruise wasn't so purple as it had looked in the dark, yellowing and old at the edges, no matter that Bruce would have seen it if Lex had had it before he left the dorm.

Bruce smashed his hand through his window. It felt so good he did it again. He smashed everything, everything, everything until there was nothing in his room left to smash but Lex and for the first time since the _first time_, Lex looked afraid. Lex who went out and traded drugs for people to hit him while they fucked him was terrified of _Bruce_. Lex cowered in the corner of the alcove the bed rested in, hands over his face while Bruce trashed his room like Lex had trashed his life.

And then Lex looked up, defiant, and Bruce wanted to hit him with every fiber of his being. Lex said, “Go ahead. Hit me. I know you want to,” and didn't wince when Bruce raised his fist, bloody and sparkling with the glass shards from the shattered window embedded in the skin, just said, “I knew it was a lie.”

Bruce screamed and fell to the floor, covering his face with his hands, sobbing. Lex crept up to the edge of the bed, slid down to the floor and wrapped himself around Bruce. Bruce shook with the force of his sobs while Lex held him, carded his fingertips through Bruce's hair, and whispered, “It's okay, it's okay. You can stop loving me now. You can stop, and I'll be fine. I promise. I love you. It's over.”

And it was a lie, because Lex wouldn't be fine, and they both knew it, but it was also true. It was over. So Bruce ran away, as far away as he could get. He needed _control_, so he ordered everything in his life. He needed discipline, so that he would never lose that control again. He needed _revenge_, for his parents, for the normal life the criminals who killed his parents took away from him, took the love of the only people who ever really cared for him away and left him vulnerable. He needed training and he found it, used it to build himself a wall discipline to shore himself up with, to make himself strong so he could _fight_.

 

* * *

Bruce is aware that Lex has been running away to Gotham to hide from his father for years. He knows the first time Lex came, just after he graduated Princeton, Lex looked for him. He is also aware that though they had a lovely chat the day Lex arrived in Gotham, Alfred did not invite Lex to stay at Wayne Manor in Bruce's absence. Bruce supposes that slight hurt Lex a bit, made it that much easier for Lionel to find Lex, but Alfred gave Bruce a gift that day. Bruce wasn't there to protect Lex that day, and he won't let himself be Lex's protector ever again. Not from Lionel, not from criminal, not from himself. Not even in the dark. Not even when Lex won't know.

He suspects that Lex comes here not because he has any expectation of seeing Bruce, who hasn't returned his calls in years, but because, despite everything, the simple act of being near Bruce makes Lex feel safe, feel ... loved. At least Bruce hopes that's it. It's a weakness to indulge himself with that fantasy, but in this one thing, he is unable to exert any control over his ruthless, devastating _hope_ that it's true.

Lex is in town, buying _real estate_, buying himself a home in Bruce's home. Bruce's hard won control threatens to choke him with iron bands around his throat and chest and belly. Bruce hasn't indulged in carnal behavior once since leaving Lex, hasn't needed to, hasn't even wanted to. It's been years, but tonight, knowing Lex is here, making himself a nest, Bruce _wants_ like liquid fire in his veins.

He could go to Lex. He could walk right into Lex's hotel room and no one would stop him, could pull Lex back into his arms and have him and Lex would let him. Lex would be grateful and Lex would kiss him and though Lex would revel in Bruce's love, in the safety of him, in the flood of affection Bruce has for him, in the way they've always wanted each other, Lex would not love Bruce the way Bruce has always wanted, to the exclusion of all else.

Lex has no discipline. He's messy and hedonistic and out of control and so very dear Bruce feels sick just thinking about Lex's life. Bruce can't fix it, Bruce has tried, and despite the desperate crush of love just behind Bruce's judgments about how Lex lives his life, Bruce can't live with Lex the way he is. It doesn't stop him from having Lex's room bugged whenever he's in town, doesn't stop him following Lex around from the second he steps foot in Gotham to the second he leaves, but it does stop him talking to Lex.

And though it stops him going to Lex, it doesn't stop him _wanting_. So while Bruce is sitting in his car watching Lex walk into a club so exclusive, so underground it has no neon sign over the door lighting up the street with it's name, he doesn't follow Lex in. Not this time, not when he knows what he'll find behind the doors. But it tempts him, and he's distracted enough by that not to notice the kid till he's knocking on glass of Bruce's window.

Bruce flinches, jerks his eyes away from the dark doorway and turns his face toward the sound and the clouds part. The kid is young, maybe fifteen, beautiful under the trappings of the street, awkward like a colt not quite grown into itself, _for sale_. Bruce presses a button to take away the barrier of the glass and the boy treats him with a smile like sunshine. Bruce says, “Get in,” and though the boy hesitates, only moments later _Clark_ (“Hi! My name is Clark, fifty bucks for a fuck, thirty-five for a BJ,” the kid tells him.) slides into the seat next to Bruce.

Bruce drives away, taking Clark, Fifty Bucks For A Fuck, Thirty-Five for BJ, back to Wayne Manor, leaving Lex to live his life however he sees fit. Bruce already has big plans for this stray puppy, and he's not going to make the same mistakes this time. He's not going to lose his discipline, not going to lose his control, not going to lose himself. This time, he's going to save someone from themself. He's going to save himself.


End file.
